Chinese (Aliexpress, etc.) orders returned to sellers due to Canada Post strike
I ordered some things around 11/11 from Aliexpress and always use ePacket (which is about the same as Canada Post expedited shipping). I knew things will take a lot longer due to the Canada Post strike and it'll just pile up. I was surprised to hear now that Canada Post was just refusing foreign shipments entirely (see HERE). I recall in the past, they just things pile up in shipping containers.
So now one of my sellers emailed me to say, "The post office of your country is not working because the strike of your country. So ePacket can not send your package now, your package return back to us. For now, we can send you the package via Aliexpress Standard shipping. Is that ok?"
However, I think that "Aliexpress Standard shipping" (ie. China Post) will just return it to the sender as well, if Canada Post isn't accepting items via *any* method. Or if they do allow non-expedited items to sit in containers, it'll be many, many, many months before I get it, so Aliexpress buyer protections will have long expired. It'll be unreasonable to ask the seller to hold onto it for a few months and resend it, so I'm thinking probably the best thing to do is try to cancel and wait until the backlog is gone before reordering? I saved maybe 10% over normal pricing due to 11/11, but it's not a big deal to pay normal pricing later and have some certainty about shipping times and buyer protection.
Any opinions or other options you can think of?
Wanted to start a separate thread on this since not just limited to Aliexpress and likely a lot of other people in the same boat.
UPDATE 12/5: the seller has told me that China EMS is now accepting epacket shipping to Canada again, so he'll resend it. We had mutually agreed to hold off and wait-and-see for a few days.
UPDATE 12/19: Another update to original post: item that was resent via ePacket arrived. It only took eight days from when the seller resent it, which--ironically--is faster than normal for ePacket/expedited. My other 11/11 items (mix of ePacket and also free shipping) have been arriving as well.
So now one of my sellers emailed me to say, "The post office of your country is not working because the strike of your country. So ePacket can not send your package now, your package return back to us. For now, we can send you the package via Aliexpress Standard shipping. Is that ok?"
However, I think that "Aliexpress Standard shipping" (ie. China Post) will just return it to the sender as well, if Canada Post isn't accepting items via *any* method. Or if they do allow non-expedited items to sit in containers, it'll be many, many, many months before I get it, so Aliexpress buyer protections will have long expired. It'll be unreasonable to ask the seller to hold onto it for a few months and resend it, so I'm thinking probably the best thing to do is try to cancel and wait until the backlog is gone before reordering? I saved maybe 10% over normal pricing due to 11/11, but it's not a big deal to pay normal pricing later and have some certainty about shipping times and buyer protection.
Any opinions or other options you can think of?
Wanted to start a separate thread on this since not just limited to Aliexpress and likely a lot of other people in the same boat.
UPDATE 12/5: the seller has told me that China EMS is now accepting epacket shipping to Canada again, so he'll resend it. We had mutually agreed to hold off and wait-and-see for a few days.
UPDATE 12/19: Another update to original post: item that was resent via ePacket arrived. It only took eight days from when the seller resent it, which--ironically--is faster than normal for ePacket/expedited. My other 11/11 items (mix of ePacket and also free shipping) have been arriving as well.
Last edited by jm1 on Dec 21st, 2018 8:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
Thanks RFD